Ubisoft backing off new IP as holiday sales slip

In recent years, Ubisoft has launched a bevy of new series with varying degrees of success. Since 2006, the publisher has introduced gamers to Assassin's Creed, Shaun White Snowboarding, EndWar, HAWX, Rayman Raving Rabbids, Call of Juarez, and Haze, among others.

Assassin's Creed paid off for Ubisoft, but the publisher's looking to take fewer risks of that sort in the future.

The flow of original intellectual properties from Ubisoft will be stemmed in the coming years, as the publisher is shifting its focus away from new franchises. In reporting its final results for the third fiscal quarter (three months ended December 31, 2009), Ubisoft confirmed "a reduction in new creations investments."

In a postearnings conference call, Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot positioned the move as a reaction to the current economic climate. Given the state of the market, he said it is time for the publisher to take advantage of the new brands it made from 2006 to 2008 and take on fewer risky new projects.

That doesn't mean Ubisoft is ceasing production on new franchises entirely. Guillemot said the company has unspecified projects that have been in development for some time and will be launched in the publisher's next two fiscal years. Though he didn't mention them by name, I Am Alive and R.U.S.E. are the two most significant announced original intellectual properties on Ubisoft's slate.

Ubisoft may be scaling back on new franchises, but it's committing itself to new technologies. Guillemot told analysts that Ubisoft was working on a number of titles for Microsoft's Project Natal and Sony's motion-sensing controller, as well as games for the social networking site Facebook.

As for its financial results, Ubisoft's final numbers matched up with its preannounced earnings from last month. Revenues for the holiday quarter totaled €495 million ($682 million), down nearly 3 percent from the previous year. For the full year ending March 31, 2010, the company expects to post an operating loss of €50 million ($69 million) off sales of €860 million ($1.19 billion).

@Meritocrat
I agree with you 100% man. I'm a HUGE fan of MGS, but MGS4 felt like it should've been a movie instead of a video game. Other game companies should spend more time developing VIDEO GAMES instead of MOTION PICTURES with a little bit of gameplay thrown in there.

This doesn't exactly come as a surprise. I just hope know the management realise they are just swapping a short term risk for a long term one.
They can still explore other options for new IP - developing it through lower budget indie-developer-scaled-projects for release through the likes of Steam or XBox live arcade for example.
It would mean less cinematic games perhaps but that sounds like a welcome change frankly. I don't need another 10 hours of my live spent on vanity cut scenes (YES THIS MEANS YOU MGS4).

Scaling back on original IPs is a big mistake. Seriously, how many Splinter Cells can you play until the whole premise gets tiring? I loved Assassin's Creed II, but AC III is not something I'm eagerly waiting for. Been there, done that. Give me new stuff.
That said, I hope I Am Am Alive lives on. I have been very intrigued by the trailer since I first saw it a few months ago.

You know whats funny about this article. Right above it is an article that say "Assassins Creed II(new ip just over 2yrs ago) sells 8 million copies. I don't think of all companies, Ubisoft would be so quick to back off new ip. If they did that with Assassins Creed, they would have missed out on a gold mine.

@Barighm were talking about tech, not sports teams. I would compare it more to seeing 90% sequels of movies each year. It gets old, i like new movies with innovative and new plots, not just rehash continuations.

You don't need a big slew of new IP's. Just one or two every now and again is enough, sort of like how you rarely see sports teams run around with teams full of rookies. Instead, they have one or two every season. If every developer did it like this, we'd still have a good number of new IP's every year.